My College Experience

During the first semester of my college experience, I believe taking Composition 1 greatly improved my skills as a writer. The confidence I have in my writing ability has soared, my time and stress management has improved when taking on an assignment, and I have learned several techniques and tools that will carry on in my future writings. From the beginning of the semester I underestimated the depth topic exploration, drafting, and revision had on the success of a final essay. However, I believe I have successfully organized my thoughts to coherently write each essay from early on. I took every process assignment seriously to help determine what techniques work for me, and I stuck with what worked through the remainder of the semester.

College is a great place to grow as a person, but you have to plan out what you will do in order to have the greatest experience possible. Without having a plan you will not be able to go forward with great confidence that you have made all of the right choices in college. This means you should not party and make bad decisions that will ruin your chances at making a great career out of your time and money that is going in for your education. I believe that you should not be part of the crowd that is only at school to party and to has fun, I believe that you should join a group that will help with your education and that you can still have a good time with. You should also have great relationships with your professors in order for you to go to them and talk about problems or issues that you are having with the classes you are taking and maybe they can give you advice on how you could improve in the class that you are struggling in, or maybe they can just be a person to talk to. Professors are great tools for you to use to start doing the best you can possibly do with the help and guidance that only professors can give.

“Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory,” a quote by George S. Patton, quite accurately epitomizes the experience of my first year at university. After being offered the Rogers scholarship, I knew that I would have to work extremely hard to make the sponsors and the Canadian Lyford Cay Foundation proud. Knowing this, I accepted the task. With taking on this challenge came many difficulties, triumphs, personal highlights, and, eventually, goals for my second year.

Friday nights are a busy time especially when you get home after a day of serving and making sandwiches, salads and soups. My dad had just got home and he sat straight down looking tired complaining about his feet and how they were hurting. He was always so open about his college experience because he thinks it is a good lesson we should all learn about because he didn’t have a straight road to go on. He enjoys telling people about it because he feels that others can learn from him. Jeff Anderer is a German Irish American who grew up in multiple cities, such as Hackensack NJ, Goshen NY, Charleston SC and San Francisco. He only lived in those city for about three year each but moved schools frequently because of natural disasters or closures. He had an unusual college experience but never the less was excited to share his experience.

College is nothing like I expected. College can either be fun or boring, it is just how people make it. The expectations for college were stressful, overwhelming, time consuming, and being responsible to do the work. I hear people talking about staying up late doing homework and talking about how hard the tests are. People always said that college is very stressful and the professors are mean, but it is not like that at all. The experience is everything in college. Talking to people, most of them say they loved the experience in college. The parties, free food, the people, and classes have made my college experience nothing like I expected.

I walk into the house close to around eight- thirty pm, it’s pitch black inside my house.  Still standing in front of the doorway, I call out to see if anyone's home. A glowing orange light appears bouncing off the hallway walls and barely brightening up my field of view. It was my mother, she was crying; I asked her why she had a candle in her hand and she had told me that the power, electric, water, and gas had all been shut off. This had been the fourth time in three months.

This semester has been filled with many different encounters and situations. Many different feelings and people. My experience in this first semester is likely one that I won’t forget, I will likely remember my first semester at Badley until the bell tolls for me and I leave this current plain of existence and begin anew. Throughout this paper I will discuss what I experienced, the problems I faced, and how I feel I improved because of this semester.

Let me just make one thing clear, the College process is not easy, and by not easy I mean nearly impossible. Thousands of students paying thousands of dollars expected to just suddenly know how to become an adult and know what they want to do for the rest of their life. No thank you. But sooner or later this was going to be my reality. So I braced myself. Not know what discoveries would lie before me, I headed off to visit LMU’s campus.

Ever since I was young, I have dreamed of going to college. Both my parents met at Indiana University Bloomington, so, they’ve always been extremely enthusiastic about the whole college experience. I am embarrassingly similar to my parents, and that, I believe, is the reason I have been looking forward to going to college so desperately. I knew it would be totally different from high school, but I think that’s the best part to me. I love new places and meeting new people.

My mother once asked me what college I wanted to attend after high school and where I saw myself in the future. These questions had been brought up the night before my first day as a freshman at Waiakea High. Seeing as I was still, at the time, a naive prepubescent teen, I just stood there dumbstruck, with a blank expression on my face. One could say I looked like a deer in the headlights. After the initial shock of the unexpected question passed, I first felt overwhelmed and flustered because I had no idea how to respond, and then I became concerned. Concerned because I knew my academic skills were subpar and there was no way I would make Division 1 Cross Country on scholarship. I felt as though I was in a hole. “Maybe I’ll just go across the street,” I replied referring to UH Hilo in a jokingly manner.We continued to talk for a while longer, but the thing that she said that sticks with me till this day was, “Aim higher, I know you can do better if you try.” Looking back on it, I can say that I was afraid. Afraid of wanting to dream high and end up failing in the end.

College is many things. It may be a new beginning, perhaps it's the next step after high school, or it could be a huge culture shock. For me it was always just the next step. I never had to worry myself about what life was going to be like after high school because I knew that I was going to be furthering my education, and going to college. Ever since I started elementary school it seems as if all I’ve been working towards is going to college. So it was always a given that I would go to college, there was no question about it. I know that not everyone is as lucky as I am to get the opportunity to go to college. Whether it’s because they couldn’t afford it, didn’t make it into a college, or just didn't want to go to school anymore. I know not everyone I come in contact with will have the same experience as me or anything close for that matter. A few things that I have really noticed so far about myself and being in college are my studying skills or lack of, my ability to pay for college/ not having a job, and my preparedness for college. These are three cultural locations that ill will be addressing throughout the paper.

I am in a dark blue twelve passenger van with unfamiliar people driving off to an unfamiliar place. Behind me I see my college campus slowly disappear. My summers tends to be chaotic with changes in scenery. Arrived just yesterday and already leaving for training to lead a week-long service trip. It’s my first time as leader and the thought of it reminds me of the wiggling worms I feel in my tummy.

I am a twenty one year old female. I come from an old school Mexican-American Catholic family. I grew up in a low socioeconomic community but we never struggled financially my father owns a construction company. I was privileged and fortunate enough to always have what I needed and wanted. I went to school in a Hispanic dominant district it was not very diverse the minorities in this district were actually the majority. Even the teachers were not so diverse we had a few here and there that were from different ethnicities but most teachers were alumni’s from this district. While I was in school I notice amongst my classmates how some of us were more privileged than others not just economically but academically as well. Academically I was always in GT, dual credit, or AP classes and I saw how we were given a better education. We were always challenged more, we even learned more things for example how to write an essay I had been writing essays since I was in elementary and some of my friends senior year that were just in regular classes were just about to learn how to write one. We were even pushed more to do apply for universities and colleges it felt like they had given up on the regular classes before they even had a chance to prove themselves. I never saw it as a privilege I was never grateful when I was in school I just thought that’s just the way things were I was not going through it and it was not affecting me. It wasn’t until the summer going into my senior

High School was a complete rollercoaster. I always thought to be able to have my grandma call me and congratulate me on my graduation but that wasn’t the case. That phone never came. She left too soon. Senior year was a total rush. I would spend most of the time in guidance annoying my counselor and the guidance secretary Mrs. Geissel aka the Scholarship Queen. I put her that name because she always be the one telling me to apply to such and such scholarship. Along with my brother they both would tell me to do this and that. But towards the end that all helped. Let me just fast forward a bit. It was Graduation and my feet were shaking as I stood in a line waiting to enter the Tyson Event Center. Along with 310 students my heart was beating so fast. It was the day we all been finally dreaming of. The day far more than just getting a diploma. For me it meant so much more I was the first female in my family to graduate. My mom never got the opportunity to get any higher of a fifth-grade level education. I was not only completing but somehow I was also completing my parents dream too. The dream that they once came to this country to find a better life for their future children. The dream of becoming so much more than just a housewife at home. The dream that my dad would always would work hard everyday in order for us to receive a good life and education.

In the year of 2016, I wanted it to be my year, but there was a requirement that I couldn’t meet, that cost me, in getting my diploma. To see, all my friends and people I knew walking that year, but not me were upsetting. When I recorded an old friend walking, I had to let it out, thinking I can’t take it, I slowly notice I was in tears, realizing that should be me walking, in a cap and gown, getting my diploma, which was my year, I cried. Not being able to participate in it was not a good feeling. I would in general be in it and finish school, not just complete it. Just seeing pictures and videos of others finishing and going further in life, my head was messing with my fear, I was crazy worried, I tried so hard to fight those tears, it seemed I was stuck in the middle feeling trapped. Feeling all alone with no one understood in my book, in my opinion, there nobody for me, when I needed them most. I even gave up on myself, just thinking I can't do it, there is no way I can finish school if I can't even pass a test. There were thoughts racing through my mind of sadness, anger, anxiety, even